


The Prince and the Team

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: 31 in 31: NHL Fairy Tales [20]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Carolina Hurricanes, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "Once upon a time there was a prince. He was large and blond and absolutely obsessed with the sport of hockey."





	The Prince and the Team

Once upon a time there was a prince. He was large and blond and absolutely obsessed with the sport of hockey.

His mother, the queen, forbade him from playing with commoners, and insisted on testing his prospective teammates for signs of nobility before he would be allowed to play with them.

Still, there were plenty of nobles who were interested in the game; besides his own brothers, Prince Jordan saw ice time with a rotating cast of characters. Once Prince Teuvo arrived on a long-term diplomatic mission from the kingdom of Chicago, Prince Jordan knew he was close to achieving his dream of a five-on-five game, being just one winger short of the requisite number of players.

Unfortunately, his brothers were away adventuring, and most of the other nobles who’d played with him in the past had gone home to attend to their duties in their own kingdoms, and writing them produced only a series of polite refusals which left the prince annoyed for days on end. He simply wanted a real nobleman to play hockey with him. Was that too much to ask?

One evening, there was a terrible storm in the kingdom of Carolina, one of the hurricanes the area was unfortunately prone to. As any sensible person would be safely at home in this weather, the castle was shut up early, and the day’s audiences were cancelled. 

It is therefore no wonder that the knocking on the door initially went unheeded, for the powerful winds of hurricanes had been known to blow debris against the castle, but it was so regular and went on for such a time that the castle staff did eventually chance to see if someone was there.

The person at the door was a bedraggled mess. Water streamed down his face, his clothes and hair were plastered to his body, and his boots squelched on the floor as they showed him in. Nevertheless, he said he was a prince, and Prince Jordan was deeply excited at the prospect of having a proper game at last.

“I’m not so sure,” said his mother, the queen. “He looks quite grubby.”

“So would you if you’d been out in this weather,” the prince pointed out, but she wasn’t swayed.

“I want to see him skate first,” she said, and nothing anyone said afterwards could persuade her any different.

“Do you skate?” Prince Jordan asked him after he’d had a chance to dry off and change.

“A little,” replied the foreign prince, whose name was Jeff. “Wait, you have rinks here?”

“I like hockey,” Prince Jordan said, a little defensively.

Prince Jeff smiled, revealing a dimple that Jordan found unspeakably adorable, and opened his mouth. They were, however, interrupted at that moment by a servant sent to fetch them to the royal rink.

When Jeff stepped out onto the ice, Prince Jordan held his breath, hoping ‘a little’ would be enough to placate his mother. What he saw next, though, took his breath away entirely.

Jeff skated beautifully. His edgework was impossibly flawless, his strides both graceful and strong, every movement perfectly precise.

“Acceptable,” said the queen, leaving.

Prince Jeff skated over to Prince Jordan, smiling. “How did I do?”

“Marry me,” Jordan said, and Jeff broke from a smile into a laugh.

They played hockey, that day and many days after, and the skates made their way into the castle museum when they finally wore out, which is where you can still see them if they haven’t been stolen.

For that was a story as real as the prince.

**Author's Note:**

> \- The Princess and the Pea is probably the most Hans Christian Andersen story of all his stories, honestly.  
> \- (This is the third of 4 HCA stories I'm using, if anyone was keeping track.)  
> \- I will never be tired of Jeff Skinner's ice skating background being referenced.


End file.
